Using ACE Appliance Device Manager Troubleshooting Tools

Generating a Diagnostic Package

Diagnosing network or system-related problems that happen in real time can consume a considerable amount of time and lead to frustration even for a system expert. When a critical problem occurs within the ACE Appliance Device Manager system, you can use the troubleshooting and diagnostics tools provided by the Lifeline feature to report ACE Appliance Device Manager data to the Cisco support line and generate a diagnostic package. Support engineers and developers can subsequently reconstruct your system and debug the problem using the information captured in the Lifeline package.

Note To troubleshoot problems related to the ACE appliance, use the debug and show commands supported in the command line interface (CLI). For a list of the ACE appliance show commands, see the Cisco 4700 Series Application Control Engine Appliance Command Reference. For more detailed descriptions of hardware and software show commands, see the Cisco 4700 Series Application Control Engine Appliance Administration Guide.

Lifeline takes a snapshot of the running system configuration, status, buffers, logs, thread dumps, messages, and so on. It gathers a period of historical network and system events that have been recorded directly preceding the event. If required, Lifeline can back up and package the ACE Appliance Device Manager database or a file subdirectory or trace and package a period of traffic flow packets for a specified virtual context.

Tip Do not attempt to use Lifeline without first discussing it with Cisco support.

Guidelines for Using Lifeline

Depending upon the ACE Appliance Device Manager problem you are troubleshooting, Lifelines can be created when unwanted events occur. Under such circumstances, available resources could be extremely low (CPU and memory could be nearly drained). You should be aware of the following:

•Create a Lifeline package after you encounter a problem that might require customer support assistance. The package is meant to be viewed by customer support.

•Lifeline collects debug data from diagnostic generators based on priority - most important to least important. When the total data size reaches 200MB, the collector stops collecting, and data from generators with lower priorities can be lost. For details on content, size, time, state, and any dropped data, see the Readme file included in each Lifeline package.

•Lifeline collects the last 25 MB of data from the file and truncates the beginning content.

•Lifelines are automatically packaged by the system in zip files. The naming convention for a lifeline package is "lifeline-yyMMdd-hhmmss.zip". For example, lifeline-060622-152140.zip is a Lifeline package created at 3:21:40 PM, June 22, 2006.

•Only one Lifeline package is created at a time. The system will reject a second request made before the first Lifeline has been packaged.

•Lifeline times out in 60 minutes.

•A maximum of 5 Lifeline packages are stored at a time. Files are stored on the RAM disk. You can safely delete these packages after downloaded them to store in another location. If you do not delete them, the Lifeline manager performs the cleanup, automatically removing the oldest package first.

Step 2 Enter a description for the package (required). This can include information about why the package is being created, who requested the package, and so forth.

Step 3 To create a package, click Save. A zip file is created in the following format: lifeline-yyMMdd-hhmmss.zip, and displays in the Lifelines pane.The package size, name, and generation date display in the Edit Lifeline window.

Note Do not perform any ACE appliance maintenance until the package is created.

Creating a Lifeline Package from the ACE Appliance CLI

If you encounter issues with the ACE appliance Device Manager GUI (for example, when the Device Manager GUI is inoperative), use the dm lifeline CLI command from Exec mode to create and upload a lifeline to a remote TFTP server. The dm lifeline CLI command is useful when a lifeline cannot be generated from the ACE appliance Device Manager GUI.

•You are the global administrator; the dm lifeline CLI command is only available to the global administrator.

•The TFTP server is reachable and is able to receive files from the ACE appliance.

Procedure

Note Your user role determines whether you can use this option.

Step 1 Log into the ACE by entering the login username and password at the following prompt:

switch login: admin

Password: xxxxx

Step 2 Enter the dm lifeline tftp CLI command using the following syntax:

dm lifeline tftp <host> [port]

The keywords, arguments, and options are:

•host—Specifies the TFTP network server.

•port—(Optional) Port number.

A file is created and uploaded to the specified TFTP server in the following format: anm-lifeline.tar.gz. The file is copied to the root directory of the TFTP server.

Manipulating ACE Appliance Files

File Browser provides access to the ACE appliance to download or upload multiple files for viewing or tracking. This tool can be also be used to rename files or view logs or other files that help you manage your network or locate problems on the ACE appliance. You can also use this feature to copy an existing context package capture buffer to a remote server.

About File Browser

•All predefined admin roles, the Server-Appln-Maintenance role, and any customized user roles that include Copy Configuration and permissions greater than monitor have access to the File Browser.

•The object selector contains names of virtual directories that map to real directories on the ACE appliance. Although these names are consistent with the CLI dir command, the actual directory names on disk are different.

•Select the folder to display its contents. Select the directory name to reload the specific directory.

•There is a size limit imposed on files that are viewed. in File Browser. ACE Appliance Device Manager displays only the first 100 KB and truncates the remaining file.

Checking the ACE Appliance DM GUI Status

If you find that the ACE appliance Device Manager GUI appears to be inoperative, enter the dm status CLI command in Exec mode to verify the health of the Device Manager. The dm status command output indicates the status of the Device Manger: whether it is running or stopped. This status is reflected in the ANM and MySQL fields of the status output.

Note You must be the global administrator to access the dm status CLI command. This command is only available to the global administrator.

For example, enter:

switch/Admin# dm status

DM ROOT:

DM HOME: /opt/CSCOanm

JAVA_HOME: /opt/CSCOanm/jre

MYSQL_HOME: /opt/CSCOanm/mysql

java is /opt/CSCOanm/jre/bin/java

ANM : STOPPED (1230)

MySQL : STOPPED (1187)

If you see that the status is "STOPPED," restart the Device Manager using the dmreload command. You must be the global administrator to access the dm reload command. Restarting the Device Manager does not impact ACE functionality; however, it may take a few minutes for the Device Manager to reinitialize as it reads the ACE CLI configuration.

Reenter the dm status CLI command in Exec mode to verify that the status of the Device Manger is "RUNNING."